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Friday, January 13, 2017

Pangloss Campaign Update ["So Many Archmages!"]

Back in October, half my game group went off to work at the local haunted house. After that was over, my job slid right into peak season. As such, our D&D 5th Edition game has been on hold for a few months. Thankfully, we're jumping back into it this weekend.

And so it goes…

Eon the Unfathomable

The Wotan Clan came to the seaside town of Vandala
and met with the archmage Eon the
Unfathomable, Interlocutor of Balance
with the Pentarchy. Eon commissioned the heroes to travel to the Well of Discord and retrieve the Eye of Aboath. The Eye is an artifact
of alien evil which Eon desires for secure study. He warned the heroes “Gaze
not into the depths of the Eye.” For this service, he promised the Wotan Clan
3000 gp, an introduction to the Seclusium, plus a variety of items from his collection
of enchanted objects. The heroes, of
course, accepted.

Lady Delphinia Starflower

Before leaving Vandala, however, the
Wotan Clan defeated a group of Mind Flayers responsible for kidnapping children
and sending them through a gate to the alien city of Illithos. The heroes were
rewarded by LadyDelphinia

Starflower with a banquet in
their honor. Toward the end of the festivities, a group of emissaries from
Archavoi arrived. These minions of the Ashen Queen were known as the Brotherhood of Cinders. They have some
business with the Lady of Vandala and have set up a large camp outside of the
town walls. Their unknown purposes are suspected to be sinister and caused
great distress to the local representatives of the Bastion. But that was a
problem for another day, as far as the Wotan Clan was concerned.

The Clan made preparations before they
left for the Well of Discord. First they researched the dungeon at the Library
of Kelious Beagle. The heroes
uncovered many useful facts about the Well of Discord. When Beagle found out
where the party was headed, the grump scholar contracted them to find a book
supposedly hidden within the dungeon—A
Treatise of Plants of a Peculiar Aspect. The party also hired the
unpleasant ranger, Mugrum Stump, to
act as their guide through the Thistlethorn Forest.

Yarko the Great!

Finally, the
Wotan Clan left Vandala and headed north into the hilly wilderness and the
Thistlethorn Forest. It wasn’t long before the heroes encountered Yarko the Great, archmage and Prefect of Good in the Pentarchy, who
flew down on his giant white owl. Over coffee, Yarko asked the heroes to bring
him the Eye of Aboath, which he intends to destroy for the safety of Pangloss,
and indeed, all of Wyrld. For this service Yarko promised to pay the Clan 3000 gp,
introduce them to the Seclusium, and present the heroes with a variety of
magical items. The heroes’ answer was
noncommittal.

One night,
while Balthazar was on watch while the rest of the Clan slept, the warlock was
approached by emissaries of his Fiendish patron. This messenger manifested as a
girl-voice goat accompanied by a robed figure holding a lantern. Balthazar was
charged with retrieving the golden skull of Hekufarhim the Crepuscular.

Continuing
on, the heroes later come upon a 100-foot-tall stone pillar, on top of which
sits a weathered old man in a loin cloth. Thistle uses her Spider Cloak to
climb up and talk to him. The man was a monk, who had been meditating for a
year and had achieved “Total Cosmic Awareness” and offered to answer one
question for them before he went back into meditation. The Clan asked for the
whereabouts of Apostate, the Mind Flayer behind the kidnapping ploy in Vandala
who escaped their justice. The heroes were surprised to hear that Apostate was
currently on Klaive, the third
planet from the sun (Wyrld is second).

The Crawling Manse

Eventually, the Wotan Clan entered
Thistlethorn Forest, where they encountered a giant snail carrying a small keep
on the back of its shell. This was the mobile manse of Maveth Blackbraid, dwarfish archmage and Magnathaum of Evil in the Pentarchy. Surprising no one, she too
wanted the heroes to retrieve the Eye of Aboath. For this service, she would pay the Clan 5000
gp, introduce them to the Seclusium, and give them a variety of magic items
from her collection. She openly admitted that she intended to use the Eye to
increase her own personal power and rule Pangloss. She also admitted to sending
other parties ahead of the Wotan Clan. The heroes were impressed and thanked
her for her honesty.

A few days
later the Wotan Clan arrived at the Trollmaw Mountains, deep within the
Thistlethorn Forest. They encountered a patrol of gnolls and tracked them back
to their village. Unprepared at the moment to take on 100-plus gnolls, the PCs
vowed to return later and moved on to the Well of Discord.

The Well of
Discord was built into the side of a mountain, its massive, fallen doors
flanked by two towers. An open an inhabited dungeon, the sounds and smells of
danger echoed from its depths. The Wotan Clan left Mugrum with Balthazar’s
footman to guard the wagon, and the Wotan Clan entered the Well of Discord.

Known facts about the Well
of Discord

The Well of Discord

Built 900
years ago by the human wizard Gorlach
the Foul Hand.

Open and
closed many times over the centuries.

The dungeon
has been expanded, reoccupied, and modified by various inhabitants.

Final resting
place of Druuj the Slayer.

Reopened most
recently 5 years ago by an adventuring party called the Brass Helm.

Gorlach was
an art lover and included many galleries in his sanctum.

Alien
cultists made the dungeon their home many decades ago.

Previous
adventuring parties have entered the dungeon and never returned:

150 years
ago, Idoryl the Gold (cleric of Brahma) descended into the dungeon to cleanse
it of evil.

There is at
least one portal to another world somewhere in the dungeon.

600 years
ago, refugees from Sahu, the Isle of the Necromancer Kings, made the dungeon
their home.

The dungeon
once held a great library.

Things that happened in the dungeon…

The Well of
Discord was a powerful Wild Magic Zone.
Spells and cantrips have become distressingly unpredictable.

Something
weird happened, where new party members appeared without warning. The party had
years of memories regarding these new individuals. Then they disappeared, along with any
memories regarding them. Anything they did with the party, however,
inexplicably remained (healing, monsters killed, the alien coin that Jimmy
Starsoul gave Balthazar, etc.).

“New” party
members included:

oMohaan
Lionstalker of the Tallgrass tribe

oJimmy
Starsoul, the space wizard

oSlipperfoot,
the giant weasel that talks like a man (R.I.P.)

oSmokestack
Joe McGillicutty, the hobomancer

oPrincess
Marigold

oQuvak,
the humanoid platypus

The Black Tongue gnoll tribe took up residence
in the first level of the dungeon, performing violent rites to Demogorgon.

The
Wotan Clan rescued Tom Barley,
Halfling cleric of The Lawgiver, from fiery sacrifice. Tom came to the dungeon
with his adventuring party, Fortune’s
Fellows. They wanted to find the Oracle that resides within the Well of
Discord and find out what’s causing mass spontaneous miscarriages in their
town. He joined the Wotan Clan in order to find his missing companions.

In the towers the Clan found a magical
“hard light” seal bearing the symbol of Brahma, holding a door closed. The
heroes used magic to suppress the seal and enter. Beyond the seal, they found
an ancient torture chamber that was home to a powerful Kyton and her minions.

On the second
level, the Wotan Clan found distressing statues of the archfey known as the
Gustatory Colossus and the Despicable Infant. They also encountered mimics, an
alien fruit bush, and the corpse of a Yellow Warlock of K’Narth.

A magical art
gallery caused numerous problems for the Clan. A chimera leaped out from a
magic eye painting, while a painting of gnolls playing three-dragon ante
transformed Skeld into one of those foul creatures.

The Wotan Clan discovered an
underground garden guarded by gargoyles. The garden held a variety of magical
plants that grew under the light a piece of star.

At last, the
Wotan Clan settled down to camp in a safe room, specially warded against a
variety of monsters. They currently share the space with a trio of disgusting Sludge
Dwarves who warned the part to stay off Level Five… unless they want to kill
the dragon.

"Thanks for visiting!"

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Who I Am

I am a long-time gamer who enjoys both new-style story games and old-style OSR stuff. I love drawing maps and goofy monsters. I help write, layout, and illustrate games for Hex Games, and I keep taking stabs at creating webcomics with mixed results. I talk about RPGs (and other things) at my Bernie the Flumph blog.